My college football playoff proposal

Let me offer this disclaimer from the beginning. This is probably identical to thousands of others' proposals, and I'm not claiming original thought here.

That said, here's what I'd like to see in a playoff system for Division I college football:

Take the champion from each Division IA conference and give them an automatic berth. That would mean the following teams would be in the playoffs:

• ACC: Florida State (8-4)
• Big 10: Penn State (10-1)
• Big 12: Texas (12-0)
• Big East: West Virginia (10-1)
• Conference USA: Tulsa (8-4)
• Mid-American: Akron (7-5)
• Mountain West: TCU (10-1)
• Pac-10: USC (12-0)
• SEC: Georgia (10-2)
• Sun Belt: Arkansas State (6-5)
• WAC: Boise State (9-3)

In the case of the Sun Belt and WAC conferences, there was a tie for first place and no league championship game. I broke the ties by by assuming you had to have a winning record (leaving 5-6 Louisiana-Monroe out of the Sun Belt) and with head-to-head matchups (Arkansas State beat Louisiana-Lafayette 39-36, and Boise State beat Nevada 49-14).

That gives you 11 teams. Then use the BCS system to determine the five at-large berths. They go to:

• 4. Ohio State (9-2)
• 5. Oregon (10-1)
• 6. Notre Dame (9-2)
• 8. Miami, FL (9-2)
• 9. Auburn (9-2)

No more instant berths to independent teams. If you finish among the top five at-large teams, you get in. If not, you don't.

Once the 16 teams were determined, I would use the BCS rankings for seeding into two divisions. With the non-BCS-ranked schools, I seeded them based on final record. So, USC is the No. 1 seed and 6-5 Arkansas State is the 16 seed.

In the Rose Bowl Division, the seedings are:

1. USC
2. Penn State
3. Oregon
4. Georgia
5. Auburn
6. TCU
7. Boise State
8. Akron

So the matchups, with locations corresponding to some of the mid-range bowl games.
USC v. Akron -- San Diego
Penn State v. Boise State -- Nashville
Oregon v. TCU -- El Paso
Georgia v. Auburn -- Atlanta

In the Sugar Bowl Division, the seedings are:

1. Texas
2. Ohio State
3. Notre Dame
4. Miami, FL
5. West Virginia
6. Florida State
7. Tulsa
8. Arkansas State

Thus the matchups:
Texas v. Arkansas State -- Houston
Ohio State v. Tulsa -- Memphis
Notre Dame v. Florida State -- Shreveport
Miami, FL v. West Virginia -- Tampa

Second-round games would be played at the Fiesta, Capital One, Gator and Cotton Bowls. Semi-finals are at the Sugar and Orange Bowls, and the championship game is at the Rose Bowl. Locations for the championship game (and probably other rounds as well) would rotate.

Of course, as in any playoff system, some good teams will not get in. They include (with BCS ranking):

• 10. Virginia Tech (10-2)
• 12. LSU (10-2)
• 13. Alabama (9-2)
• 15. Texas Tech (9-2)
• 16. UCLA (9-2)

But that's the way the cookie crumbles. I thought about just taking the top 16 BCS teams and creating a playoff, but in my mind, it's more unfair to exclude the "mid-major" conferences every year than to reward the bigger schools based entirely on "tradition."

Once the playoffs were announced, any bowl not used in the playoffs could do their own National Invitational Tournament with the remaining teams. Virginia Tech v. LSU wouldn't be a bad game. Or, we could just exclude all bowls and let them fight among themselves.

Is it perfect? No. My Ducks end up playing the first round in the backyard of their opponents. I'm still torn about inviting Arkansas State and leaving out 10-2 teams Virginia Tech & LSU. But I spent less than 90 minutes coming up with this. How hard would it be for college football to put some real brainpower into the project for a couple of months, and finally determine a true national champion?